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Payroll in Plane is an operating cycle, not just a list of payments. Each run determines who gets paid, how much they are owed, and when money moves. Plane prepares the payroll for you, surfaces anything that needs attention, and executes the run after you approve it. Whether you have W-2 employees in the US, contractors abroad, or a mix of both, payroll works the same way: Plane handles the complexity of schedules, tax calculations, currency conversion, and compliance so you can focus on reviewing and approving.

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The payroll cycle

Every payroll run follows five stages. You can always see which stage a run is in from the payroll dashboard.
1

Preparation

Plane automatically prepares the upcoming payroll using each worker’s compensation, pay schedule, and any recent changes (new hires, salary adjustments, bonuses, reimbursements). Payroll items are created for every worker on the schedule.
2

Review

Before the approval deadline, Plane surfaces the full payroll for your review. You see a summary of totals, a breakdown by worker, and any changes since the last run. If something needs attention—a missing bank account, a tax setup issue—Plane flags it as a blocker.See Reviewing payroll for the full approval workflow.
3

Approval

Once you are satisfied with the payroll, you approve it. You can also approve individual workers while skipping others, or let Plane auto-approve schedules where you have enabled that setting. Approval locks in the amounts and triggers the funding process.
4

Execution

After approval, Plane handles funding, currency conversion, and transfers through the payment infrastructure. A charge is created against your company’s funding source, and individual payments are routed to each worker’s bank account.
5

Completion

When all payments are delivered, the payroll run moves to a paid status. If any individual payment fails, Plane flags it so you can take action—the rest of the run is unaffected.
Pay schedules, approval deadlines, and cut-off dates vary by country and worker type. Plane manages these automatically based on each worker’s location and setup.

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Key terms

Understanding a few terms helps you navigate payroll and money movement in Plane. These concepts are intentionally distinct—they answer different questions and appear in different parts of the dashboard.
  • Payroll—the scheduled run or cycle that determines compensation and obligations for a pay period. A payroll contains one or more payroll items, one per worker.
  • Liability—the total obligation created by the payroll. This is what the company owes across all workers in the run, including taxes, benefits, and net pay.
  • Charge—the company-side funding event. A charge debits your funding source (bank account or balance) to cover the payments in a payroll run. See Payments for more on charges.
  • Payment—the worker-side transfer. Each payment delivers funds to a single worker’s bank account. Payments can originate from payroll or be created independently.

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Payroll for employees vs. contractors

Plane runs payroll for both employees and contractors on the same dashboard. The experience is unified, but the underlying mechanics differ. Employees go through a full payroll calculation that includes gross pay, tax withholding, benefit deductions, and net pay. For US W-2 employees, Plane handles federal, state, and local tax filings. For international employees hired through Plane’s employer of record, the local payroll provider handles statutory requirements. Contractors receive the agreed-upon amount without tax withholding or benefit deductions. Plane converts currency when needed and routes the payment to the contractor’s bank account. Contractor payroll items show the gross amount and any applicable fees. Both employee and contractor payroll items appear together in each run, grouped by pay schedule. You review and approve them in one place.

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What you see in the dashboard

The payroll dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of your payroll activity:
  • Upcoming payroll—the next run for each pay schedule, showing its current stage (preparation, ready for review, or approved), the approval deadline, and the total amount.
  • Items needing attention—workers with blockers, missing information, or changes that require review. These appear prominently so you can resolve them before the deadline.
  • Recent payroll history—past runs with their status (paid, failed, or void), totals, and the ability to drill into individual worker details.
  • Off-cycle runs—any bonus, correction, or ad-hoc payroll runs that fall outside the regular schedule.
From the dashboard, you can navigate into any payroll run to see the full breakdown by worker, review changes, and take action.

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Pay schedules

Payroll runs are organized by pay schedules. A schedule defines the frequency (weekly, biweekly, twice monthly, or monthly) and the specific pay dates for your workers. You can have multiple schedules in a single workspace—for example, one biweekly schedule for US employees and a monthly schedule for international contractors. Workers are assigned to a schedule, and Plane generates payroll items for each pay period automatically. See Pay schedules for details on creating and managing schedules.

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Off-cycle payroll

Sometimes you need to run payroll outside the regular schedule—a bonus payment, a severance payout, or a correction to a previous run. Plane supports off-cycle payroll for these cases. An off-cycle run works like a regular payroll run: you specify the workers, the pay period, and the amounts. Plane prepares the items, you review and approve, and the payments execute. Off-cycle runs appear separately on the dashboard so they are easy to distinguish from regular payroll.
For a single one-off payment to a contractor (like an invoice payment), consider using a payment instead of an off-cycle payroll run. Payments are lighter-weight and do not require a full payroll cycle.

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Auto-approval

For schedules where payroll is predictable and low-risk, you can enable auto-approval. When auto-approval is on, Plane automatically approves payroll items that meet all requirements—no blockers, valid bank accounts, and earnings greater than zero. Items with issues still require manual review. Auto-approval is configured per pay schedule. You can turn it on or off at any time, and the setting only affects future payroll runs.
Auto-approval skips the manual review step. Only enable it for schedules where you are confident the inputs are stable and correct.

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Payroll and the API

The Payrolls API lets you list and retrieve payroll runs programmatically. You can use it to:
  • Monitor upcoming and past payroll runs
  • Retrieve detailed breakdowns by worker
  • Build integrations that react to payroll events
Related API resources include payments, charges, and payroll changes.

Pay schedules

Create and manage pay schedules for your team.

Reviewing payroll

The full approval workflow, from review to execution.

Payments

Send one-off payments outside of payroll.

Payrolls API

List and retrieve payroll runs programmatically.
Plane prepares payroll items as soon as the pay period opens, typically one full period in advance. You can see the upcoming run and its estimated totals on the dashboard before the review window begins.
If a payroll run passes its approval deadline without being approved, the affected items are marked as overdue. Plane notifies you so you can take action. Overdue items can still be approved or skipped—they are not lost.
Yes. You can approve individual workers within a payroll run while skipping others. You can also create an off-cycle payroll run for a single worker if you need to pay them outside the regular schedule.
Plane calculates payroll in each worker’s local currency and handles currency conversion automatically when funding from your company’s source currency. The exchange rate is locked at the time of execution, and you can see both the source and destination amounts in the payroll details.